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State Seeking to Finalize Detroit's Disputed Mayoral Election Today

The state took over the job of verifying the Detroit primary results after the Wayne County Board of Canvassers last week refused to certify results prepared by the county clerk’s staff that differed greatly from unofficial results the city’s elections department compiled on election night.

August 27, 2013

State election officials will meet in Detroit this morning in an effort to finalize disputed results of the city’s Aug. 6 mayoral primary election.

The state’s review of the election is ongoing and might not be finished by today’s public meeting of the Board of State Canvassers, said Fred Woodhams, spokesman for the secretary of state.

The state board of two Democrats and two Republicans will meet at 10:30 a.m. at Cadillac Place, 3044 W. Grand Blvd.

The state took over the job of verifying the Detroit primary results after the Wayne County Board of Canvassers last week refused to certify results prepared by the county clerk’s staff that differed greatly from unofficial results the city’s elections department compiled on election night.

The county’s figures — the result of a two-week review of Detroit’s election documents — would have invalidated more than 20,000 write-in votes for mayor and declared Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon the winner instead of write-in candidate Mike Duggan, who was declared the winner on election night.

Wayne County election workers suggested the disputed write-in votes be invalidated because Detroit poll workers did not jot down hash marks on their work sheets to add up write-in votes.

Hash marks are not required by law to count write-in votes.

According to the city’s unofficial results, Duggan received 44,395 write-in votes and Napoleon received 28,352 votes.

The county’s unofficial results had Napoleon on top with 28,391 votes to Duggan’s 23,970 votes.